Now that we have that out of the way, the HTC Amaze 4G has a new OTA starting to roll out today, one that brings Wifi calling and a few software fixes to users of the best looking phone ever made. Besides Wifi calling, the fixes are:

Improvements to Bluetooth connection

Clock widget not updating with time zone change

Improvement to Twitter and Peep application

Improved Wifi connection

So we're not looking at a huge milestone in the software development of the Amaze, but take it from me -- Wifi calling is sweet and reason enough to look forward to this one. You'll see it soon (the initial rollout begins today, and continues until Jan. 20 2012), and it promises to be a painless update. Like all promises, that can be broken, so keep an eye on the Amaze 4G forums to stay abreast of any issues folks are finding.

Reader comments

Jerry: Maybe you guys should do a story on IMS and what it means to the user and where it is available. This phone and T-Mobile are one of the first attempts to deliver this service that I am aware of.

This is fairly cool technology, which promises to free up spectrum in the last mile (between tower and handset) as well as expanding the coverage area into remote places where carriers have fewer or zero towers.

It does so by having the handset open a socket to the carrier on wifi and the carrier will simply route calls via that socket over TCP/IP, as if the handset had moved to a different base station (tower).

IF, (and its a big if) this does not count against your minutes it would be a good deal, because most people spend a lot of time at home or in a work environment where they have wifi. It also saves tower congestion, and (theoretically) should provide free world wide roaming voice calls, as long as you have wifi.

But I think we can be fairly confident the carriers will attempt to monetize this charging you minutes or dollars and remove any incentive to use it.

T-Mobile customers (at least those on recent NON-Grandfathered plans) can log into my.t-mobile.com and add unlimited free wifi calling. (does not count against your minutes) I did this and now have unlimited calling when i use wifi. Works great! More info on this at howardforums in the tmobile section.

So the update went very smooth, done in like 10 minutes. After the reboot there's a screen that pops up to let you know wifi calling is available, but the instructions are wrong: they say to go to the app drawer and select WiFi calling. What you actually have to do is go to Settings\Wireless & networks and then enable the Wi-Fi Calling option.

However it isn't working for me - I get a red wi-fi calling icon in the notification area and a message that "SIM Card is not ready", even though I'm using the SIM card that shipped with my phone.

Getting ready to call support, my guess is my SIM card is incompatible for some reason.

Why would they have to set the plan up for that?
Sounds like they are leaving the back door open for charging you.

Either that, or the phone does not know its own phone number. This is not that uncommon with T-Mobile.

The sim is registered to your number in the T-mo database, but the phone doesn't always know it because it sometimes isn't on the sim card. Applications that need to know your phone number can't query it anywhere. (Like when they have to log in for wifi calling).
Check Phone status / my phone number.

It's because this is a new version of wifi calling vs. the older android versions. Something to do with 911 and all. It's entirely possible you need a current rate plan for compatibility reasons. But, if you call them, have them add the free addon for free unlimited wifi calling.

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